


Gold Light, Gold Ring

by saintlygames



Category: The Watchmaker of Filigree Street - Natasha Pulley
Genre: Domestic Boyfriends, Domestic Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:00:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22935217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintlygames/pseuds/saintlygames
Summary: 'Keita,' he says, meeting his eyes. 'I wish I could marry you.'
Relationships: Keita Mori/Thaniel Steepleton
Comments: 7
Kudos: 58





	Gold Light, Gold Ring

Mori seemed to be having a very pleasant day. Thaniel smiled quietly to himself as he listened to him hum. He didn't know the song, but the gold-hued chords of Mori's voice would always be recognizable to him. 

The workshop was usually closed on Sundays, and he and Thaniel were milling around the house finishing chores at noon. Thaniel found a domestic sort of satisfaction in just helping Mori housekeep. It was normal, and nice. 

'Six will be coming around tomorrow,' Mori announced. He was rearranging a bowl of fruits. He placed the oranges on the top.

'Oh?' Replied Thaniel, feeling warm and fulfilled. 

'You'd best prepare yourself; she'll be throwing a fit about how one of the Haverly boys offered her an orange.'

Thaniel stopped his cleaning and turned to look at him. He raised a brow. 'That's nice of him. Why did she take offense? Besides her being cross with him for simply existing.'

Mori shrugged, although he obviously knew. 'She's still new to having things just  _ given  _ to her. My guess is that one household offering her food and bed is enough, and anything else is charity,' he says. His brow furrows a little. 'She is also at a stage in her life where she finds charity offensive too.'

Thaniel nods at the bowl Mori was just fussing with. 'Is that why we have oranges?'

Mori nods. 'She still wants oranges. She just didn't want  _ his  _ orange.' 

Thaniel huffs a small laugh. The house work was all good and normal, but nothing was ever quite that ordinary when living with Keita Mori. In the middle of dusting his dining room table the clairvoyant recalls the kind of fruit that will ignite the spiteful rage of a very small girl who shall apparently show up tomorrow. Thaniel loved all of this. Having Six running around with her childish chaos and fearlessness. The domesticity, the quiet days. Living with Mori, the whirlwind that he was. 

It was the formula for the wonderful life that Thaniel very much enjoyed living. Yet when he glanced at Mori, who was at times silent and deep in his thoughts, or blunt, or surprising, or being so tender with him that it made his heart ache, something still felt missing.

\--

The spring evenings brought a golden light into the house. The days were getting longer, and Thaniel liked that the sky they could see from the sitting room windows wouldn't be dark by three in the afternoon. 

Mori was sitting cross-legged at the coffee table, and array of metal watch parts spread out before him. Though everything was scattered somehow there was still an order to it all. Thaniel sat comfortably on the sofa sorting through sheet music that was given to him by the orchestra. 

Thaniel was not focussed. He was watching Mori's hands work through the parts and pieces as he assembled a brand new timepiece. He admired the delicate shift of bones and the pull of sinew, working with the miniscule project that required a precision Thaniel had a difficult time comprehending. 

He liked Mori's fingers, perhaps more than what could be considered strictly appropriate. They were deft and skilled and worn from years of work. When they caught the golden light from outside they glowed.

But his fingers were empty of a ring. If he wore a gold band on his ring finger right now the light that caught on it would be blinding. The thought made Thaniel's chest tighten. 

He remembers the wedding bands he exchanged with Grace. She returned it to him after the divorce was sorted out. At the time he didn't know what to do with them, and they weren't exactly worth keeping for any sentimental value. He had considered pawning them, but that felt wrong too. He was thankful when Mori offered to take them off his hands claiming he could have the gold melted for a new timepiece. 

Thaniel would silently admit to himself that he still wished he had a ring, but the matching one he would like to belong to Mori, and him alone. The idea was absurd, but it didn't stop him from wanting it. 

His thoughts and heart are racing as he thinks about it, and Mori finally gives out. His sigh borders on dramatic as he puts down his tools. 

'I haven't said anything!' Thaniel protests. 

Mori looks tired, but he smiles fondly at Thaniel. It makes his face go warm. 'No, but you're intending to say quite a lot.' 

Thaniel swallows. 'I've a lot on my mind.'

'I'll put away my work and then we can talk properly, if you like?' Mori says. 

It pained Thaniel when he did this, when Mori knew anything that Thaniel could say but is still so considerate to allow him to say it himself. His love for him swelled like sunlight. 

'Yes,' says Thaniel. 'I'd like that.' 

Mori smiled that way that made his eyes crinkle, and the light of the sunset deepened the lines. He got to work collecting the parts and returning them to their drawers in the workshop. Thaniel filed away his sheet music, his attention catching on his bare fingers as he put the papers away. 

He was just returning the folder to its place next to the piano when Mori appeared with two cups of tea. He placed them on the table and waited for Thaniel to sit with him. 

They settled in close with their knees touching when they sat. Thaniel could feel the warmth of him through the fabric. 

'What is it then?' Mori asks. He's got a hand on his teacup and another stroking Thaniel's knee. This easy affection was no longer new, but it existed only within the rooms of this house. 

Thaniel has far too many thoughts. And choosing was made more difficult considering how Mori could remember all of them until he said it. It was a kind of pressure that made Thaniel want to always say the right thing.

Mori shakes his head. 'You don't have to do that. Say what you mean to say.' 

He said it so gently and with such care. Thaniel sighs softly. He reaches for Mori's tea and returns the cup to its saucer. There's that firefly light of the electric bulbs in Mori's dark eyes. Thaniel can't pick what to say, so he doesn't. Instead he leans forward and kisses him.

Mori held Thaniel by his jaw and stroked his cheek, then angled his head. Their mouths move together sweetly, and Thaniel hangs on to Mori's shoulders, slips his hand into his dyed-blond hair. 

Just like the first time he kissed him, Thaniel pours forth every thought and every desire without saying a word. The effects are Mori's soft groans as he experiences every intention. Thaniel smiles against his mouth. 

When they break apart, it's Mori who releases first. He's breathless and smiling. He looks so young. 

Thaniel holds Mori's face. 'Keita,' he says, meeting his eyes. 'I wish I could marry you.'

There it was; the sum of his desires. Admitting it made him feel lovely and light, but the feeling was trampled when he considered the reality. He wanted it terribly, but saying it aloud makes him realize how foolish the notion was. Two men in love would not be taken kindly to. Whether in private or in full view of the crowds. They would be ridiculed and shamed, beaten and stripped of their jobs. Mori would have his business taken away, his home and his whole life. He might even be sent back to Japan. All the dangers made his head spin and his heart sink. 

Mori placed his lovely hands over Thaniel's, gently taking them from his face and holding them. He stroked the backs of Thaniel's hands with his thumbs. 

'No, no. You aren't foolish for wanting that with me,' whispers Mori. 'Don't think about all the dangers of wanting that.'

'I just wish it wouldn't be so difficult,' he admits.

'I know.' Mori says, and he sounds sad. 'But I would like it, if we were married. Truly.' His lips tilt up at the corners.

Thaniel's chest feels like it's grown a size bigger, all to hold his heart which keeps getting bigger. He smiles, and it's soft and easy. 'I'm glad.'

Mori places a hand on the back of Thaniel's neck and pulls him forward until their foreheads rest against each other. 'You know, one day, years in the future people like us will be celebrated.'

Thaniel closes his eyes, and there's sun behind his eyelids. 'Tell me more.'

'People will fight for love, and there will be parades, and colour, and pennants and flags. People love who they want, and marry who they want.' 

'It sounds like a dream, doesn't it?' Thaniel feels a distant longing for that. That freedom. He trusts Mori, but he also knows they won't live to see it.

'You're right. We won't have that. But people like us have existed forever and will continue to exist. Something better waits for them,' says Mori. He sounds sure.

Thaniel smiles. 'We might not live to see that, but we have  _ now. _ '

'Yes, we have now.' Mori tips forward and catches his lips.

The sun was sinking lower now, and the light no longer reached over the buildings opposite the house. New shadows cast long figures on the polished wood floors. Thaniel and Mori's figures moved slowly together, one shadow surrounded by light. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> there is not enough watchmaker content. i chose to intervene and provide everyone with a thaniel who just wants to be married even though they are practically husbands already


End file.
